to the joy that looked out of her little eyes. She didn't even say she was
sorry for him, but just answered as straight as he had and confessed how
she'd offered herself within the hour to Martin Ball and found that his
views were very much altered and he didn't want her no more. "And God
knows best, father," finished up Jane.

"So it's generally believed," he answered. "And nobody can prove it ain't
true. For my part, you was always balanced in my mind very tender against
that changeable woman, and nought but a hair turned the balance her way.
'Tis a strange experience for me not to have my will, and I feel disgraced
in a manner of speaking; but, if I've lost her, I've gained you,
seemingly. And I shan't squeak about it, nor yet go courting no more; and
I'll venture to bet, dear Jane, you won't neither."

"Never--never," she swore to him. "I hate every man on earth but you,
dad."

She closed his eyes and tied up his chin twenty years after, and when she
reigned at Wych Elm, she found but one difficulty--to get the rising
generation of men to bide under her rule and carry on.




No. IV

THE OLD SOLDIER


A woman may be just as big a fool at sour seventy as she was at sweet